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Strogg
The Strogg are a hostile cybernetic alien race featured as the main antagonists in the Quake 2 and Quake 4 video games, and recently in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. The Strogg are cybernetic constructs of unclear origins that reproduce by taking biological components and fusing them with advanced technology in the crude process of stroggification, overriding the subjects' own thoughts with a device known as a neurocyte that slaves them to the vast and highly efficient Strogg Communication Network. The Strogg also require protein from dead flesh to create a substance known as stroyent, which is vital to them for nourishment and the lubrication of their vast industrial complex. They are entirely devoted to military and industrial activity, which has made their technology in such fields far more advanced than any other known civilisation. They maintain this massive military and industrial complex on their homeworld, Stroggos, which is heavily defended with various security installations and fully fledged to launch assaults on other worlds. The Strogg's need to harvest biological components for their own augmentation, and the flesh of slain enemies for the creation of stroyent, is their primary motivation, since it is neccessary for their survival. It is this motivation that led the Strogg to Earth, which they promptly staged a massive invasion on almost immediately upon discovery. This Strogg aggression led to humanity's long war with them that has continued unabated ever since. The Strogg are recognisable mainly as humanoid figures of decaying flesh with machinery and armour fused onto their bodies, likely because their long war against humanity made humans their main source of biological components. Humanoid Strogg are also recognisable by their orange eyes, caused by the microcellular Strogg nanite technology therein. Background Possible origins There are various theories about the Strogg's origins. Some have said that the Strogg are the remnant of a massive war long ago, a military structure that was left without purpose but continued to carry out its mission to conquer even when the original war had ended and their own original allies and enemies had died out. Other theories include that the Strogg were once an alien race, perhaps not different to humans, and their world may have once been like Earth. However, their practice of cybernetic augmentation to keep themselves alive, as well as mutation and nanotechnology, may have changed them, and over time their forms were altered so much that there is nothing left of the original "Strogg" species or any concrete evidence it even existed. All that remains in the Strogg is the steel and merciless will to conquer, perhaps some echo of their ambitions long ago before they were twisted beyond recognition. There is no existing evidence of the Strogg ever being independent, creative and thinking beings, as their activity seems to be co-ordinated by various control nodes, devices, the neurocytes within their brains and of course the Nexus itself. However, for them to have achieved their state as cybernetic beings would have required creative minds, however long dead by now, a long time ago in their past. It is possible that the Strogg were assembled as a highly adaptive army to protect some other species, but they may have become so advanced that they disregarded their own masters and became resource-hungry in their pursuit of the one item their existence requires- biological components from other (preferably humanoid) species. This desire for biological components led the Strogg to Earth which had become a hub for various interstellar civilisations, and the result was their sudden and devastating attack on it. A lot can be told from Matthew Kane's words about the Strogg: "created for war, and fueled by the blood of their enemy". This supports the aforementioned idea that the Strogg are supersoldiers left from a major war long ago, since their reliance on enemy bodies as their resource effectively means that the enemy's dead are their source of power. This being said, it means that the Strogg literally feed on death itself, and war is their only source of nourishment. In the eyes of whosoever created the Strogg this may have seemed advantageous because the Strogg would not require any resource other than the dead of the enemy- so they would fight out of their own thirst for blood. However, what the Strogg's creators may have failed to realise is that the Strogg need to kill in order to live, and they would kill their own creators too. If this was the case, the Strogg were like a Frankenstein's Monster gone seriously out-of-control who killed their own creators and unleashed needless terror onto other worlds. A marine aboard the Hannibal during the Second Stroggos Invasion said that someone had told him the Strogg are the "next step in human evolution" saying when you think how much humans rely on technology, this is not so far from being right. This supports the possibility the Strogg may be a very similar or parallel version of Earth, judging by their humanoid forms and their engineering methods (even down to the use of screws, bolts and modular floor tiles/metal panels/bricks) being so similar to Earth, but their future was much darker than we would like. The war against the Strogg Main article: War against the Strogg The Strogg invaded Earth in the mid-21st Century in search of biological components. Though at first they gained the advantage the humans rallied and defeated them in a long and bloodthirst conflict. The humans then invaded Stroggos and the Strogg were forced to defend their homeworld. A lone marine destroyed their main planetary defence system, the "Big Gun", and killed their leader, an entity known as the Makron. However, they were resilient and regrouped, constructing an new and more powerful Makron. After this, the humans learned of the Nexus, a system that co-ordinated the Strogg Communication Network. After a series of daring operations they destroyed it, crippling the Strogg's tactical and strategic chances of victory because this disorganised them, though they still possessed an army billions strong and continued to fight the humans. In the second human invasion the Strogg also lost many facilities essential to their existence, chiefly the Strogg Medical Facilities where they renewed their ranks with Tactical Transfers, a particularly smart and elite unit, and the facilities that they used for creating stroyent, which is essential for lubricating and fueling them. The stroyent's pumping system, a massive heart, was also lost to the humans' hostile infiltration of their industrial complex. To make matters worse for the Strogg, their reconstructed Makron was killed by a rogue transfer named Matthew Kane along with the Nexus. Whether or not these operations have finally destroyed the Strogg war machine for good remains to be seen. One thing is certain: mankind's survival depends on the Strogg's defeat. Homeworld Main article: Stroggos The Strogg homeworld is host to a vast military and industrial complex with its capital city based at Cerberon, which is the heart of Stroggos civilisation, built into a massive crater called Crater Majoris. The Strogg have mostly stripped the planet of its resources and there is little that remains of the original ecosystem that creatures like themselves would have needed to evolve. However, there is still a small amount of animal life on Stroggos that has undergone horrific mutation and these once-docile creatures will attack without provocation. The entire planet is a desert wasteland covered in various military and industrial facilities. Life processes Harvesting The Strogg process of gathering the dead remains of their enemies is known as harvesting. This is the principle way in which the Strogg gather the resources that are their primary source of strength. Stroggification Main article: Stroggification The neurocyte Stroyent Culture and society Science Experiments Advanced technology Warfare Command structure Makron Guardians Strogg Communication Network The Nexus Treatment of prisoners Tactics Air force Ground forces Mechanized walkers Infantry weapons Strogg military designations The Strogg use a variety of different cybernetic constructs as soldiers. Here are some of the different kinds of combat unit: *Marine *Grunt *Berserker *Gunner *Pro-Marine *Gladiator *Makron *Heavy Hover-Tank *Light Tank *Convoy *Hornet *Turret